the error by appearing on the same side as the terror organization. syrian government forces have launched an attack on a makeshift camp in adler province. a missile hit close to civilians including families who had fled from earlier bombing attacks in the nearby hama countryside a syrian government pushed into the province has forced about one hundred twenty thousand people from their homes in recent weeks palestinian president mahmoud abbas has labeled u.s. president trumps peace efforts the slap of the century saying shame on you at a meeting of the p.l.o. central council abbas reiterated he will not accept the trumpet ministration as a mediator in talks with israel and u.s. president trump has declared he's not a racist he's been accused of using vulgar language to describe african countries haiti and el salvador. to dozens have taken to the streets to mark seven years

since the revolution that sparked the arab spring the rallies come amid a backdrop of further west sparked by government imposed tax and price hikes. as the headlines on the do stay with us is coming up next thank you for watching. on counting the cost to oil hit seventy dollars a barrel we examine the drivers behind the rise one of the economic reasons behind the rest into new and we look a little closer at the holes trading between france and china counting the cost at this time on al-jazeera. that bombshell book rocking the white house michael also firing very troubling allegations from his. letter. to. the questions are now being raised about the reliability of the. area they pretty much ran up the space. alarm richard gere's but if you're at the listening

post here are some of the stories we've been tracking this week michael wolff throws the book at donald trump exposing a dysfunctional white house and a thing or two about the u.s. mainstream news media egypt and the talk show hosts on the front lines of the c.c. government's propaganda efforts night after night after night the protests in iran and the social media battlegrounds that matter there plus years of the press the worst of the worst. in the age of twitter and the twenty four hour news cycle a book launch might seem like a story for a slow news day unless it's fire and fury by michael wolff a journalist who divides opinion on his approach to sourcing and to the facts having inveigling his way into the trouble white house to tell the inside story of the administration he describes a president with the barest grasp of his responsibilities suffering from a gradual loss of his faculties in short wolf goes there using the d.

word that mainstream news outlets have shied away from dementia well wolf publishers stand firm against donald trump's lawyers and the threat of litigation copies of the book are flying off the shelves the american mainstream news media remain hypnotized by a spectacle they did much to create our starting point this week the white house. the president fire and fury was making headlines before the first copy it was sold that bombshell book rocking the book has come out and everybody's head is exploding it is a devastating portrait of the trouble with the excerpts alone fueled two entire news cycles forty eight hours of coverage peppered with angry tweets coming out of the oval office or perhaps the president's bedroom and winning the presidency qualifies him is not smart big news and a very stable genius at that if the white house actually thought threatening the publisher with a lawsuit would stop the inevitable it was wrong the publication was moved on the

book is at lest as of nine o'clock this morning the president's lawyer sent a cease and desist letter to which you say actually what i say is what we're doing on the box of chocolates in this particular book is the kind of presidential history that this particular prison president deserves the care of this particular president has generated a kind of jordan of his which is not predicated on the politics of substance. but there are no politics of subterfuge and show there is nothing in this book that actually addresses the fundamental issues of the present but actually bangs on a kind of sensationalism that now is extended into the formation of a book just between two covers we can't get enough of this whether or not every one of those anecdotes can be trusted you know we will see i'm sure the reporting will continue to play out but what wolf has offered is this behind the scenes fly on the

wall look at it at an administration that people are still trying to figure out just how it functions on a day to day basis we've seen a lot of confirmation bias by people who want to believe that donald trump is exactly as depicted in the book and others are saying well frankly this is really not all that new we also see some jealousy perhaps of michael walk by other journalists who have covered very closely then perhaps saying they're upset that they're not the ones getting all the attention now. the idea that michael wolff nearly gathered known journalistic tidbits and repackage them in book form is only partly true inevitably there is some of that both the new york times in the washington post have new reports about the mind of donald trump there has been plenty of reporting on president trump's mental stability his temperament however when it came to the possible signs of dementia news outlets have treated that with caution and no one had ever quoted steve bannon trump's former advisor describing

meetings with russian contacts as treasonous before and that led to a series of attacks from trump and bannon's ouster from breitbart news one of the online voices of the american right. journalists covering the white house either did not find those stories or if they did their editors chose not to publish mainstream news outlets like to say they hold power to account but they also tend to build bridges and burning those bridges. can mean losing future access that can come back to bernie that early on some journalists decided to sacrifice their integrity for access well kind of had the same idea he went in there to do x. as journalism and then realized you could burn his bridges at the end of this by publishing the result so i think that if anything we should be having a broader conversation about what the purpose of access journalism is a government that wants to essentially function as an autocracy

a government that routinely attacks the press and threatens journalists so we were talking before the break on the media's reluctance to discuss donald trump and the possibility of dementia here's m s n b c's morning host joe scarborough regarding a column that he writes for the washington post i written twice in my column. a quote about one of the people close is donald trump during the campaign saying he's getting really sage of dementia he repeats the same stories over and over again his father had it but twice the washington post would not let me put that in my column would end until your book came out this was something that we were not allowed to speak about like so many in the mainstream media joe scarborough has come a long way on truck compared to the early days of the election cycle when his program was addicted to the candidate the ratings he would draw the revenues he would generate scarborough as a lot of blood on his hands because back when it was in joe scarborough self

interest he gave donald trump enormous access to his show talking about. it with very very light questioning now always that he wants to say that he has a story saying that trump has early onset dementia to me that would be something that you would need and on the record source for. michael wolff admits in his preface that on questions of sourcing and verification many of the accounts in the book are in conflict with one another but in some cases they are. for the reader to judge and that he had settled on a version of events i believe to be true that's not so much of a preference as it is a disclaimer however while wolf has become a lightning rod for those critical of the state and standards of american journalism today the role of his publisher macmillan has been largely ignored which is since without the publisher's distribution network the writer's words would go on right mcmillan says it had one editor and three fact checkers working with wolf

however some basic errors including getting names wrong still made it into print michael wolff is not a popular figure for personal and professional reasons he certainly played fast and loose with facts in the past he doesn't follow some of the same sourcing guidelines that a typical newspaper reporter would. then we sourced at times simply astounding graphic repetition of what certain sources have told wolf the irresponsibility of the publishing house is worse than the irresponsibility of the author said a hundred fifty years ago democracy treat their. the way. they enrich and despise them at the same time this publishers don't hear nothing all the way to the bank. michael wolff did not make his name covering politics his best known work to date was a biography of rupert murdoch a news baron understands the meat the role they have played in the trump story and

he would have known that they would find his version of the story resisting fire in many ways it's a reality t.v. about reality t.v. president that's the nature of my style in the book better reminiscent of reality t.v. cast of characters who are constantly at war with each other were plotting with each other. to the public versus for example a serious investigation of prime minister use of high. our heart the foundation the essence of the media's fascination with khan drama is all about ratings but the president was rejoining and trump is affectively a steroids shot for the news media's broken business model the deep dysfunction now gripping this white house in the short run he can help them survive the warming election we're going to now and where do you go from that i don't know. you could

blow this once you've had trump you can never go back just like a drug unless you go through a massive catastrophic overdose the heat is body slamming c.n.n. which maybe is what we're headed to the good i don't think any of this is healthy and this will not end well it cannot end while. we're discussing some other media stories that are on our radar today with one of our producers joanna who's joe over the past couple of weeks around has seen some of the biggest political demonstrations it's seen in almost a decade the social media is among the platforms where this battle is being waged what are we seeing there while government critics have been on the streets since late last year and they are demanding political social and economic reforms now the government has responded with force at least twenty one people have been killed and over a thousand have been jailed now both sides are also using social media to spread

their messages despite the fact that facebook twitter and you tube have been banned in iran since two thousand and nine now this was the last time that we saw protests on this scale now instagram and telegram which is the country's biggest social media platform are also being temporarily blocked but people in iran are used to finding ways around these kind of sensors and they are actually still using these networks funnily enough so is the government so the protesters are using social media to information share. mation imagery and to get organized what about supporters of the government what are they doing on social well dozens of twitter bots have been created now these are accounts and have very suspicious profile names they don't have any profile pictures they have very few followers and what these accounts are doing is they are tagging certain images as fake and they are discouraging iranians from joining these protests now they are also putting up tweets saying things like oh well i just arrived here at the protests but nothing seems to be going on and why are lying nobody is actually

a year now on top of that they've been identifying protestors in videos and pictures asking authorities to arrest them but the protestors are actually fighting back they have created accounts in which they share details of the security personnel who is confronting them in the demonstrations turning out to another story that you've been looking into in india the government there has filed a criminal complaint against a journalist over a data breach something to do with a very ambitious identity card scheme the government's working on that involves biometrics one of the details well there seems to be a very care case of shooting the messenger now this campaign by the indian government is called and it basically stores very elaborate details of virtually all indians online now last week a reporter for the tribune newspaper watch them kyra published an investigation in which she actually showed that she could buy these personal records online for less than ten u.s. dollars now these records include contact details but they could also potentially include fingerprints and retina scans now the unique identification authority of

india due idea which is supposed to safeguard that data set that the reporter violated in yes privacy laws by trying to get access to the database and is now actually demanding police action against her so the government's been giving some blowback on this and not all of it is coming from within india no it's not a lot of people are saying that this case is an attack against press freedom and whistleblower edward snowden actually weighed in on this case from moscow on twitter last week saying that the journalists that are exposing the of her breach deserve an awards not an investigation do you want to arrest those responsible they are called the you id ai thanks joe. egyptians call them emperors and every night millions tune in to watch them lecture entertain rant and even cry their way through hours of television output their talk show hosts and as a group they form a key filter through which egyptians have come to view their politics under the rule of abdel fattah el-sisi talk shows are used to digital mys his presidency and

to vilify his critics television audiences may be dwindling in many countries but given the high rate of illiteracy in egypt t.v. remains the medium of the masses and few institutions are more influential than the evening talk shows not everyone in egypt is buying what the talking heads are selling though given that they frequently venture into the realm of the absurd listening posts tarak not fun now on the highly politicized world of t.v. talk shows in egypt. say that talk shows are of the most important phenomenon in the way that government communicates with the public will be an undersea one time i used under my baby shot a few dinora many even most of it's consistent it's entertaining. you get the feeling as though you're sitting at a cafe with them. and don't mistake it for

a moment this is not about bringing information to the people this is about bringing the government this course into your home instead of the book but the habit of. case in point and egyptian intelligence officer on the phone to a number of t.v. personality directing them on how to report the u.s. decision to recognize jerusalem if the cops or. ally double it all then is a look as if. instead of condemning the decision they should persuade the us to simply accept that if it looks similar along. the tapes of tamed by the new york times show just how involved the state can be and what goes out on the country that waves.

egyptian talk shows are an accidental byproduct of state's censorship when former president hosni mubarak allowed more private channels on the air he made it clear that news bulletins would remain in the hands of state and broadcasters private stations got around that by creating discussion programs focusing on the news the hosts of these shows were everything that monochrome counterparts on state t.v. were not so i didn't get any and they said they don't have a job that you must have thought was way of looking at how yeah i know yet how many hail it is they. can yet they have a bill that they're engaging emotional and opinionated and uniquely egyptian and that they start out with a monologue that goes on and on and on the monologue can be up to a half hour in some cases forty five minutes where you have a host not only talking. but working himself or herself up emotionally. sometimes you would have some video theatrical props of bullets and picture

a video and the other thing is the interaction not only with the in studio guests but also with viewers at home for example we've seen relatives of some of the victims of the terrorist bombings where an audience member calls begins crying on the air. and a host begins crying as well i love god. and as a result the host becomes this emotional link this connection that brings people in their homes together i can see at least eighty percent of journalists i interview would. have to be first citizens and the second professional journalists. who often. know. that there is a strong cord for subjectivity within that is to community set for seize the issue of the idea of objective journalism as trees and the importance of the

personalities at play are beyond crucial without them the shows would crumble two of them happen to be the power couple of middle eastern talkers is the first and he is very likely the most handsomely paid i want. he has a natural instinct of intelligence and the intelligence agencies recognise that his wife is the incident she is a study in upper middle class the car and delivers her message. not as opinion but it's fact. that if. a plot bloc and. the third person that comes to mind is the most grotesque figure of explicit propaganda. i had to show what i. want no i also not defend its own that much more so is loud fascist non-apologetic all want to go.

x. and y. o. what he excels at hyperbolic nationalistic form of diatribe that appeals to the lowest common denominator. president of the puts one hundred fifty took power four years ago with a valve to return stability to egypt staking his legitimacy on combating terror must be driving it have the right man in motel running island became a. t.v. personalities play a leading role in echoing the government's line. tell us about how to prepare us how do. you watch that you have a couple of them they create a shared sense of panic and victim. one of the key aspects of the stock shows is the way they whip up a sense of national emergency machinery and then

a machine at the. they react in a very emotional sensationalistic way to very atrocious events. shaaban most bought about. that me about that again are you not only support the government if you bend over backwards so to speak so dissidents political prisoners are typically vilified they are portrayed as enemies of the nation is. a good and i do when. and if you portray anybody as an enemy of the nation in a time of emergency what you're saying it's ok to jail them it's ok to beat them up and in some cases it's ok to kill them to make sure i very prominent political tool or political platform for messaging you need to support that he she because said he she is facing unprecedented dentures coming from cell time but also and mainly from inside there is

a conspiracy coming from that was surprised at who oh my letter had way yeah me oh i'm the only other little bit of a i got mad when i was mean despite they are under few scratch by seventeen every critical voice can be linked to someone suppressive it's the roster of the bad guys. real imagined and otherwise is constantly evolving to suit the needs of the state. good morning. bob. qatar is now public enemy number one turkey is public enemy number two and iran is public enemy number three consume it every day and let's not forget. that we let it. go let a happy i don't have a kidnapped about god i say and depending on the day of the week israel isn't so bad or is public enemy number one and it's not me me and i don't i don't. and

of course the ruler is featured prominently one way or another very rarely do you hear criticism and when you do it is measured i.e. the critique isn't leveled at the president. so i don't feel if. i did know was at all how people could live but got a fortune label there has always been a consistent awareness where the red lines are precisely and right now there are more outlines than there ever been and for the most part the present is know not to cross those red lines they know that their jobs depend on it direct criticism of the president the military or the intelligence service it's all off limits across one of those red lines and you could end up disappearing from the airwaves like libya and the world a prominent british lebanese preventer who had a contract and before being kicked out of egypt in two thousand and sixteen or

abraham many thought a journalist who despite shifting his political position through the times had his share count last year. and they're not the only ones. he. is sort of the type of muckraking investigative journalist who's not afraid of speaking truth to power. who would go east. and. in the last. in north didn't. before the revolution for example he became known for basically confronting mubarak and his sons so that's one example of another famous talk show host is i'm a lefty he's not afraid to push controversial issues and that was his undoing for airing a very famous interview. that got mr fired you have to keep in mind that it all comes down to information who

has it doesn't how it's delivered hat's off to the sea for understanding the twenty first century for understanding the link between a lack of education a means of dissemination obstruction of information the government has created an environment where disbursement of from ation unless it is tightly controlled by government is all but. finally it's award season hollywood's golden globes have just been handed out and president trump wants in he recently told his twitter followers that his own awards for bad reporting from the fake news media will be coming out soon that inspired the new york based committee to protect journalists to announce their own c p j global press oh pressers awards threats against journalists are no laughing matter the c.p.g. says two thousand and seventeen saw a record number of them jailed and journalists are being censored attacked sometimes killed over their work well even now with some politicians who have made

it into the sea pj's hall of shame and we'll see you next time you're at the listening post.

zero. swear every day. in two thousand and eight al-jazeera documented a groundbreaking scheme. preparing some of india's poorest children for entry into its toughest universities. ten years on we return to see how the students and the scheme a helping change the face of india. super thirty at this time on

al-jazeera. discover a wealth of award winning programming from around the world being eat more and find professionals like tom carroty is still wide awake in your dinner is ready to study find powerful documentaries debates and discussions as minister you do need to be critical of all aside any and all sex is a challenge your perceptions the contours of this story are shaped by the interests of the countries involved only on al-jazeera. he's president has a military assault on a kurdish enclave eminent.